Last month, Rep. Wesley Bell and former Rep. Cori Bush sparred in a joint radio appearance over who had done the most to help St. Louis residents after a pair of devastating natural disasters ripped through the community.
Bell described how, after a tornado hit the district in May 2025, he reached out to every member of the state’s mostly Republican delegation to get millions in funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Bush said that after the district was hit with flooding in 2022, she took a different approach to draw resources: hitting TV, radio and the internet.
“I’ve been criticized for wanting to be on TV a lot, but when I’m on TV I’m talking about St. Louis, because that’s how people know,” she said. “The more you speak about it, the more the urgency is there, and the awareness.”
The back-and-forth highlighted a key debate between the two Missouri Democrats ahead of their Tuesday rematch, one of several races this election cycle testing what kind of fighter the party wants to see in office. In Michigan, where Democrats are hoping to hold onto a key US Senate seat, Rep. Haley Stevens has framed herself as a “workhorse” to progressive Abdul El-Sayed’s celebrity in another Tuesday primary, while her opponent has criticized the millions in outside funding helping her campaign.
